What to do before selling a used pc

beluce · Aug 13, 2012

Good afternoon Major Geeks! I have a used HP 311 with Windows 7 installed on it. I will be giving it away soon and I would like to get the personal information off of it. I used a Windows 7 installation link and therefore have no recovery disks. Thanks for your help!

pwillener · Aug 13, 2012

I'm sure you will get a lot more advice here; let me just start with some items:

download & install CCleaner, if you do not already have it

run CCleaner* with every option checked (not the registry cleaner)

uninstall any program that the recipient may not want

delete all your mail (inbox, sent items, deleted items, ...)

delete everything in Your Documents, Your Pictures, etc.

*) if you already had CCleaner installed, make sure you remove all the 'Cookies to keep' from Options | Cookies.

Major Attitude · Aug 14, 2012

I have a bit to add to this as there are 2 possible ways to go.

1:
Get IOBit Uninstaller and batch uninstall anything you installed to try and make it look like a clean Windows install: http://www.majorgeeks.com/Iobit_Uninstaller_d6427.html
Be sure to uninstall any email programs or anything you use a password with.

Then use CCleaner and be sure to use secure delete under option to make sure the data can't be recovered. See screenshot.

2: (and my personal favorite)
Reinstall Windows 7 (deleting the current partition and recreate a new one wiping all old data) and do Windows Update. Take you about 2 hours but that makes sure you deliver a clean, fast computer with your data all overwritten.

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What to do before selling a used pc

beluce Private E-2

pwillener MajorGeek

Major Attitude Co-Owner MajorGeeks.Com Staff Member

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What to do before selling a used pc

beluce Private E-2

pwillener MajorGeek

Major Attitude Co-Owner MajorGeeks.Com Staff Member

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